Designated a scenic route along much of its length, U.S. 395 skirts the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada Range west of the Nevada border, providing year-round access to outdoor adventures and unparalleled scenery. It runs through historic towns, paces tumbling streams, overlooks lakes, traverses ranch lands and climbs foothill summits. Alpine resorts, winter sports areas, fishing areas, campgrounds and trailheads lie along a network of connecting side roads.
Unique among the scores of ghost towns scattered across Nevada, old Berlin in Central Nevada remains the only former boomtown to receive protection as a state park. Created by the Nevada Legislature in 1957, Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park couples the 1890s ghost town with a nearby fossil bed of huge marine reptiles discovered in the 1920s.
One of the best preserved of vintage Nevada mining boom towns, Eureka remains a good place to explore the state’s colorful past and a nice town to visit. Born of a silver-lead boom in 1865, Eureka still benefits from mining in a county with some of the biggest gold mines in the world. Although its population, presently about 1,900 people, grows when mining thrives, the sedate county seat will never again become Nevada’s second largest city as it was in the 1870s with a population of nearly 11,000.
Cut by a little creek, peaceful meadows surrounded by wooded hills in southwestern Utah belie the horrific events that occurred there in 1857 when 120 California-bound emigrants died during the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Both battlefield and graveyard, the 2,500-acre site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also seeks to have the site memorialized as a national landmark, a lengthy process.
Tiny Genoa lies in the verdant Carson Valley at the base of the Sierra Nevada, about 10 miles from Nevada’s capital, Carson City, on Nevada Highway 206. Nevada’s oldest community, Genoa began in 1850 with the establishment nearby of a seasonal trading post along the emigrant trail to the California gold fields.
Nature creates bountiful gardens in Southern Utah’s high country during the short summer season, usually peaking in July. Springtime arrives late atop the 10,000-foot plateaus. Plants hasten to produce flowers and seed for future years in the brief weeks between the last of snow melt in May or June and the return of autumn in September.
Southern Utah lures heat-weary Las Vegans like the ice cream man draws neighborhood kids on summer afternoons. Who wouldn’t welcome cool, pine-scented breezes, cold mountain streams and lakes, chilly nights under starry glitter and bracing mornings with the scent of wood smoke strong in the air? Utah’s beautiful high-forested plateaus offer respite from scorching temperatures as well as unequalled recreational opportunities within a half-day’s drive of Las Vegas.
Nevada’s scattered small towns observe the national birthday on July 4 in ways that reflect their individual heritage, yet incorporate activities traditional across the country.
Central Arizona’s Verde Valley lures visitors with stunning scenery, varied recreational opportunities and fascinating remnants of the past. The region boasts scenic highways, ghost towns, historic railways, state parks and national monuments. Within a half-day’s drive from Las Vegas, the Verde Valley invites Southern Nevadans to visit and explore year-round.
Unique among local recreation sites, the Old Spanish Trail Park focuses upon the early history of the Las Vegas Valley when it was a major stop along the historic overland route connecting settlements in Spanish New Mexico and California. The 2,700-mile Old Spanish Trail received deserved recognition with its 2002 listing as a National Historic Trail.
